this week’s episode tackles the thorny subject of Volkswagon’s 2020 three-part series of television commercials for the Atlas Cross Sport (21 mpg city, 24 mpg highway).  The ad agency tapped Paul Giamatti and Kieran Culkin to play parts  designed to not so loosely recall their current roles on “Billions” and “Succession” respectively, thus causing confusion on the part of viewers who would prefer not to watch either show out of sequence. Also curious is VW’s decision to scrap the 3rd commercial in the trilogy, leaving us to wonder how the story is resolved (perhaps a class action suit on the part of Atlas Cross Sport owners because the key fob disables their home alarm systems). In any event, I’m sure you will agree this is a fascinating topic and I’ve done my best to get deep into the details, as deep as I could manage on the periphery of 2 + hours of music , anyway.